If you want a good all around browser, Firefox.
If you don't like Mozilla either (which is fair), GNU Icecat, Fennec F-Droid, etc.
If you absolutely need Chromium, Ungoogled Chromium.
this post was submitted on 11 May 2021
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I don't really agree that Brave should not be used because of a toxic fanbase.
I think the best reason not to use Brave is that they are a marketing/advertising company that claims to give their users privacy. Advertising companies will always have an incentive to invade privacy as it increase add revenues. Brave is just copying Google's business model with extra steps.
Brave Browser is funded by DoD: https://np.reddit.com/r/privatelife/comments/fe34ls/exclusive_brave_browser_funded_by_dod_contractor/
Brave traffic detected with Cryptocompare despite BAT rewards disabled: https://removeddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/gr8nue/
Brave also has a known history of whitelisting Facebook and Twitter trackers, and has a crippled adblocker that does not work on Brave's "acceptable" advertisements.
Brave Browser hardcoded their crypto partner Binance referral links (https://twitter.com/cryptonator1337/status/1269201480105578496) alongwith Ledger and soon-to-be-compromised Coinbase (https://decrypt.co/31461/coinbase-wants-to-identify-bitcoin-users-for-dea-irs)
toxic fanbase.
Case in point, the replies in this thread lol.
I just don't use it for technical reasons:
https://wccftech.com/privacy-centered-browser-brave-is-in-hot-waters-for-violating-users-confidence/
That said, I think it should continue to exist, if only for stunts like these:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-browser-files-gdpr-breach-complaints-against-google-in-the-eu/
I use the Firefox fork Librewolf, and am quite happy with it myself.
Does Librewolf suport Firefox extentions?
Yes.
I love the idea of microdonations to websites you visit, rather than ads, but Brave and the people behind it are trying obnoxiously hard to make money. There should be a truly grassroots, open source project that does the same thing.
Wouldn't donating to a site's Patreon/Liberapay/Cryptocurrency address/etc be more effective?
Yes, but I think the whole point of Brave is to automatically handle these donations. I don't want to have to search for a Bitcoin address every time I read a blog post.
I'm sure you could make a firefox plugin that does the same thing.
Just log how much time you spend on each website, then when you pass a threshold, say 2hr, ask you to send money, say 2euro. Then when there is enough money in the website's pot, say 200euro, they email the website owner and ask them to make a libera account to collect the money.
I think that's all brave does anyway.
Seems like a really easy way to scam well intentioned website goers though. Are we sure Brave is actually sending the money over?
Yes. It would need to be trustworthy, have a good reputation (so not brave).
If it uses bitcoin, then the money can be traced directly. If set up right, there would be no way to scam people without them noticing immediately.
This could be a very good business idea. To make it profitable, just do yourself what you are doing for websites: "you've been using the fuckyoupayme app for 12 months and supported websites with 200euro so far. Please donate us devs 24euro."
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Tbh I never trusted brave. Firefox with addons is also great fro privacy. Yes, somettimes Mozilla is doing some iffy things, but it is still better than Brave.
You seem to be inserting emotional reasons into your arguments why Brave shouldn't be used. I'm not convinced. That being said I don't use Brave because the business model is not sustainable in my opinion and if scaled gives too much control into the hands of one company. If Google adopted the same policy for its browser it would be investigated for anti-trust monopoly practices in a heartbeat. You can't have a single company controlling all ads in a browser. Even Google doesn't do this.
What's the problem with emotions though? Do you believe emotion can be easily separated from most statements? Isn't one of the main problems with tech in our times that it's manipulating emotions? A sense of invasion that prompts a need for privacy does not involve emotion? A sense of justice for user freedom does not involve emotion? Emotions are pervasive and subtle, this trend of preferring the emotionless option over the one that shows emotion weirds me. Someone who feels targeted by a homophobe feeling 'emotional' about it seems more than valid to me, and calling it emotional in a dismissive way is like saying that emotion is not valid/important.
The problems is that your emotions are different than my emotions so we try as a society to separate emotions when making decisions that affect everyone. It's actually part of the basis of the scientific method.
That would be true if such "society" was ruled according to the scientific method. I agree with your premise, what I'm trying to point out is that those who actually make the calls can and will often act on emotions, and use the emotions of the population against it. They have no regard for our emotions being different. It' s not "we" who try to separate emotions, it's those we are in power of making that separation, and they separate not according to the scientific method but according to socio-economical interest.
Or you can see it differently.
Scientific methods showed that appealing to the general instead of the particular is more widely accepted as argument in our societies.
Eg : boltanski & thevenot "de la justification"
What are "our" societies? I live in one dominated by fundamentalist Christians.
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I feel that we must do more as a community to be positive and inclusive. I'm not a fan of Brave but I don't think it is good to villanise people who use the browser.
If we want to get more people to use more Free, Libre & opensource software we need to make sure to be inclusive and informative so that people can make informed decisions by themselves. If you believe you are right and have good reasons for it the information you have should be enough to help people make a good and thoughtfull judgement.
People who dunk on brave and it's users don't care about libre software but care about being superior.
So stop smearing Brave and dunk on its users and inspire people to use cool and ethical software. <3
Elaborate please? I'm here just for the open source project
The more you dig the weirder it gets.
They are selling an idea of a better browsing which honestly I bought into it (monetising attention is still a great thing to me) but in practicality it is just benefiting Brave.
The user experience I had was horrible, from not getting it to work, to seek for help in their community and being met with disdain... "Oh I never thought I'd see the day that people would complain of not getting adverts".. well that's the narrative you are selling isn't it? I agree to watch ads in turn to redistribute that attention to my fav creators.
They are pulling users in through all these different nice ethical values: privacy focused browsers, a fairer economy to creators, being paid for you attention.. utopic in all the ways. In practice, they are pulling the biggest number of users and investors through crypto greed.
But above all this was what personally got me out of it - just reflecting on the whole thing:
When you start using brave, you will block ads (which definetly get you a better browsing experience) but you are cutting the revenue from the creators, like all adblocking does. What brave is purposing is that you have the option to watch ads but not those you are blocking! They select ones that are 'relevant to you' - which are their partners.. win win for them. And in turn you get BAT.. so you take away the potential money from the creators to your wallet. Hum...
But still, even if you are in for the greed, the story it's not really like that- yes it is slowly filling your uphold wallet (if you get it to work, because that's another problem.. if you don't, guess where the money is sitting - with brave!) and then you can spread through your creators (again - if you can get it to work, and only for the ones that are affiliated w brave or else you can't). So it's all Brave's territory isn't it?
And in mobile you can't connect your uphold wallet until you reach 25bat of credit - which will take you a year of normal use even getting ~20ads a day. (They get a 20% cut). So all this promise of content creators being paid in a fairer way, turns out that you are spending your attention watching adverts that are only benefiting brave.
In practice you will diverting ad revenue from creators to brave while you think you are making money, or worst, making the internet a better place. Nah. Fuck Brave.
PS: you can also find dirt on Firefox. Our consumerism is a form of vote. Choose wisely, do your homework.
At this point, I don't care as long as it's open sourced and it's good to me to use. Hell, lemmy is made by communist which I am very opposed of (I really like capitalism with socialism safety net more). Political views and shit like that doesn't budge me anymore from using the product. Maybe I would value more in the way they treat their product, like microsoft's way of handling their open source project as a way to EEE.
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I use Vivaldi, great and nice community and a great and well known CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, who had created the Islandic cooperative Vivaldi. Privacy oriented and the most advanced Browser today
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